End impasse over nominees

The state Supreme Court is being damaged by the ongoing Hatfield-McCoy playground battle between Gov. Chris Christie and the state Senate Democrats. It's time for both sides to knock it off and do the people's business.

The battle reached new bizarre heights last week when Christie announced that he would not be renominating Associate Justice Helen Hoens, a Republican, to the state's highest court.

Instead, he nominated Camden County Assignment Judge Faustino Fernandez-Vina to fill the vacancy, effectively ending Hoen's career on the court in order to spare her from being treated badly by the Democrats.

The nomination must be cleared by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Democrats. Christie said Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, a member of the committee, made it clear Hoens would not be confirmed.

It's not at all clear if Fernandez-Vina, who also is a Republican, will be embraced by the committee, despite Christie's claim that the new nominee represents a compromise.

There is no denying that Christie fired the first shot back in this standoff in 2010 when he refused to renominate Associate Justice John Wallace to the court. Wallace was the only African-American and, at the time, one of only two South Jersey residents on the court.

While Christie had every right to do what he did in an effort to remake the court in his image, his overturning of a long-term tradition of maintaining a 4-3 split on the court between Republican and Democratic justices rankled Senate Democrats.

Currently, there are two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent on the court. Christie has nominated six justices so far, none of them a Democrat. The Democrats want at least one more from their party.

Senate President Steve Sweeney has vowed to stonewall Christie's nominees and by and large has kept his promise.

Christie is right when he states that the court is "being damaged because you don't have constitutionally appointed and confirmed justices on the court." But neither he nor the Democrats seem to care, at least not enough to compromise.

This ludicrous political oneupmanship has to end. One way forward is to give the new nominee a hearing. Barring a major issue, let Christie have his way. And then hope that Christie will at long last play ball.

This is a political dispute, and while the nature of the process for nominating and confirming justices is necessarily a matter of ideology and politics, there comes a time when both sides need to put aside gamesmanship, finger-pointing and obstructionism, and do the right thing.

In this case, the right thing is working together so that the highest court in the state is functioning as it should, and serving justice to those who come before it to plead their case.

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End impasse over nominees

The state Supreme Court is being damaged by the ongoing Hatfield-McCoy playground battle between Gov. Chris Christie and the state Senate Democrats. It's time for both sides to knock it off and do

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